The ever increasing popularity of portable computing devices such as smart phone, tablets etc. has seen a rapid increase in the demand for wireless data services. Most recently the tablet sales alone exceeded 100 million units worldwide. This ever increasing popularity in wireless services has lead to a demand for higher data speeds and quality of service. This demand has seen the evolution of mobile data networks and mobile communication networks in particular. From the introduction of SMS on 2G systems the increasing requirements of data services has seen movement to 2.5G (GSM, GPRS, EGPRS (Edge)) to 3G UTMS, HSPA, HSPA+.
In more recent years the 3GPP realised the Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless communication standard. The LTE standard promise an all-IP core network with a simplified and flattened architecture that supports higher throughput, lower latency, as well as support for mobility between 3GPP (GSM, UMTS, and LTE) and non-3GPP radio access technologies, including CDMA, WiMAX, WiFi, High Rate Packet Data (HRPD), evolved HRPD (eHRPD), and ETSI-defined TISPAN networks.
The use of a common packet core across multiple access technologies enables mobile service providers to expand their end to end services beyond those currently provided. One area which has seen much interest is Machine to Machine (M2M in ETSI term) communication or Machine Type communication (MTC in 3GPP term) via LTE and LTE Advanced cellular networks. The M2M communications market is a market that is likely to continue to expand in the future due to the rise of applications such as a smart metering, commercial fleet tracking, etc. transmitting and receiving data.